A provocative article in Dezeen hypothesizes that self-driving cars will disrupt the hotel industry.
Cars will increasingly resemble mobile apartments, he said, and service stations along highways will evolve to support them, offering drivers facilities for washing, dining and shopping.
Hotels would change in response, Schuwirth added, with drivers using their facilities but returning to their cars to sleep. “Why should a hotel look like a hotel today?” he [Audi executive Sven Schuwirth] said.
An element of this is certainly true — some travelers will occasionally sleep in their cars. But I suspect this will be more like the way some travelers now sleep on red-eye plane flights. It happens, but it’s not that common (as a percentage of total nights spent on trips), and nobody likes it.
This does raise an interesting question about the ride-sharing industry, though. How much more specialized will vehicles become in the future?
In a world where people simply order up a ride, it’s possible to imagine specialty “overnight” vehicles that have beds instead of seats. And single-passenger pods. And a much wider range of delivery vehicle shapes.
Average will be over and specialized will begin.
Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on December 7, 2015.
David Silver 